Ben Hecht
Screenwriter
1894-1964
Oscars for Best Screenplay for "Underworld" (1927) and "The Scoundrel" (1935)
Ben Hecht was born in New York City to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. His family moved to Racine, Wisconsin; when he graduated high school at 16, he moved to Chicago and began a career in journalism. After World War I, the Chicago Daily News sent him to cover Berlin, where he wrote his first and most successful novel, Erik Dorn, in 1921.
Hecht also had a successful career as a playwright, penning productions like "The Egotist" and "The Front Page," which ran for 281 performances on Broadway. He moved on to Hollywood and won an Oscar for his first screenplay, which was for Josef von Sternberg's "Underworld" (1927). Soon after, he became the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood, earning enough to spend most of the year in New York doing what he considered "serious writing." Hecht never thought of the movies as serious art, partly because of the limitations imposed by finances and censorship.
He worked on screenplays for some of Hollywood's most successful films: "Scarface" (1932), "Gunga Din" (1939), "Wuthering Heights" (1939), "Spellbound" (1945), "Notorious" (1946), and "Monkey Business" (1952). Hecht also was uncredited on many other projects, notably "The Shop Around the Corner" (1940), "His Girl Friday" (1940), "The Sun Also Rises" (1957), "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962), and of course, "Gone With the Wind" (1939). Sidney Howard, the original screenwriter for "Gone With the Wind," received final screen credit and the Oscar; it was to have been credited to a team, but Howard died in an accident in 1939 and the studio honored him with the credit.
Hecht was known for being a civil rights activist, fighting against discrimination against African-Americans and Jews. He was a proponent of the United States entering World War II and worked to rescue Jews from Eastern Europe. He also tried to publicize the truth about the Holocaust during a time when news on the issue was scarce.
In "Moonlight & Magnolias," Hecht has just been called in by producer David O. Selznick to rewrite the original screenplay for "Gone With the Wind." Despite not having read the book, he agrees to bang out a new script in five days with the help of Selznick and director Victor Fleming. The atmosphere gets more and more tense as the three battle hunger, fatigue and differing worldviews, but in the end, the finished product is worth the wait.
The Actor
Adam Lishawa
Adam Lishawa last graced the stage of the GCP as Vic Johnson in "Funny Money" and Grown-up Ralphie in "A Christmas Story." He has also been seen at UF and the Acrosstown Repertory Theatre in "Bug," "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Hunter Gatherers."
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